This Week Was Loud, Petty, and Completely Unserious
Outrage won, substance lost, and nobody should be surprised.
This week felt like a perfect snapshot of where American politics actually is. Loud. Petty. Performative. And deeply unserious.
Everything I am going to touch on has already been covered elsewhere. Nothing news breaking. This is simply my read on what mattered to me this week and why.
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The Rob Reiner Tweet and the Attention Economy
I want to start by saying this clearly. I do not enjoy talking about Donald Trump as an individual. It is a distraction to policy and progress. Running on anti Trump messaging alone without substance is not a winning platform.
We are living in an attention economy, and Trump understands it better than almost anyone in politics. Attention is the currency. It does not matter whether it is good or bad. What matters is that people are looking.
Jake Paul said in an interview I watched years ago that the worst thing that can happen to you isn’t criticism. It is silence. Trump operates entirely on that principle.
For nearly a decade now, Democrats have run the attack Trump’s character playbook. Mock him. Moralize against him. And then act confused when it does not move voters.
Most people do not vote based on whether a politician is polite or crude. They vote based on whether their lives feel better or worse. and if that person is talking about issues to make their lives better or worse. That is the part Democrats keep refusing to internalize.
What bothered me about the Rob Reiner tweet was not that it was offensive. It was that it was unserious. This constant posture of inflammatory language is performance.
We have had public figures shot. We have escalating political violence. And yet people who brand themselves as serious adults feel entitled to pour gasoline on the discourse because it feeds the algorithm.
This is not organic. I subscribe, at least partially, to the dead internet theory. A significant amount of online outrage is manufactured by think tanks, political operatives, bots, and incentive structures designed to provoke anger or dopamine responses. Outrage travels better than discussion. Sex and resentment outperform competence.
The Reiner tweet did exactly what it was designed to do. It generated backlash. It generated engagement. It fed the machine.
That is the tragedy. We would never be rewarded for doing better, because better is not what the system incentivizes.
The Presidential Walk Is Just Petty & Unserious
The descriptions now posted under presidents in the White House are the same thing we were talking about with the Rob Reiner post. This is not governance. This is not messaging strategy. This is not rallying a base around accomplishments or policy wins. It is trolling from the seat of power. It gains attention. Because it is drama and entertainment.
We could be focused on wars, inflation, healthcare, or the actual release of the Epstein files, the White House is choosing to manufacture drama…because drama is the product and you/we are the consumers.
The algorithm does not reward progress. It rewards conflict. It rewards spectacle. It rewards irritation.
Bernie Sanders and the AI Moratorium
Bernie Sanders is calling for a moratorium on data centers and AI expansion.
Fine. Let’s take that idea seriously and follow it to its logical conclusion.
Let’s stop competing.
Let’s admit publicly that we no longer care about being a technological leader. Let China outpace us. Let other countries dominate emerging industries. Let them build the infrastructure, capture the productivity gains, and shape global standards.
That is the argument.
Countries can exist without being number one. France, Germany, Japan, Italy all do just fine. They have identity, pride, and relevance without dominating the world.
So why not America?
Why does anyone need to run on progress at all? Why not run on preservation? On maintaining the status quo? On stopping innovation entirely?
Let’s pause AI. Pause robotics. Pause space exploration. Pause gene research. Pause medical innovation. Pause automation. Pause infrastructure upgrades.
Let’s just make content. Movies. Streaming shows. Entertainment. Consume. Repeat. (which all funny enough need data centers)
If you stop playing the game, you stop losing.
Here is the uncomfortable part. That message resonates. A lot. People are tired. Risk feels scary. Change feels destabilizing. Stagnation feels safe.
But stagnation is not neutral. It is surrender.
The Epstein Files and Congressional Cowardice
The Epstein Files: The Litmus Test for Congress
Next week, Congress will face one of the most important votes in modern history; whether to release the Jeffrey Epstein files. Make no mistake: this is a litmus test for whether Congress will actually do the will of the people or continue to protect the powerful.
The Epstein files remain the clearest litmus test for whether Congress is willing to do the will of the people.
This is one of the rare issues with overwhelming bipartisan public support. People want transparency. They want names. They want answers.
Congress knew exactly what would happen. Redactions were not an accident. The absence of clear unredacted language in legislation was not a mistake.
I have written about this before, both federally and here in Ohio. Omissions are power. Vague language is a shield. If lawmakers wanted full disclosure, they would have required it explicitly.
They did not.
That tells you everything you need to know.
Who are they protecting?
This was not incompetence. It was design.
This week was not about policy. It was about incentives.
Attention beats substance. Outrage beats solutions. Stopping feels easier than building.
If that is the political ecosystem we are going to accept, then we should stop pretending we are surprised by the outcomes.
As always, I want your pushback, your disagreement, and your perspective. Not applause. Not slogans. Just honest discussion.
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Fantastic breakdown of how the attention economy has bascially hijacked serious political discourse. The part about how outrage travels faster than actual policy discussoin really nailed something I've been thinking about. I've noticed how most political figures now seem to optimize for engagemet rather than clarity, treating governance like a perpetual campaign. The Bernie AI moratorium example is wild because it's framed as progressive but actually concedes global leadership to competitors.